Another whirlwind week has come and gone!

Isn’t it funny how every week is simply the “longest week ever,” but then you blink and it is Friday morning and you’re forcing yourself to write a blog? Or is that just me?

Halston and I celebrated our second anniversary with an outing to Hunger Street Tacos. We aren’t huge fans of extravagant mid-week celebrations, so Taco Tuesday with our friends was right up our alley (plus, we’ll be celebrating over the weekend!).

The following night we made our way to Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Resort Orlando’s annual Halloween celebration. We hadn’t been since 2013 and walking through the gates brought back so many high school memories – mostly of my stepsister and I screaming and screeching around the park, trying to avoid the Scare Zones.

Because we went on a Wednesday night, the crowd was a lot smaller and the longest line we stood in was an hour long. It is also more affordable to go on week nights. In the six and a half hours we were there, we managed to make it through five Scare Zones, seven houses, munched on fries at Richter’s Burger Company, wandered around Ollivander’s in Diagon Alley (the place was deserted for the first time in years!) and rode on Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. To answer your question, yes, our feet were throbbing toward the end of the night, but it was so worth it! I was the most afraid in Horrors of Blumhouse which included scenes from Insidious, The Purge and Sinister. Once I heard Tiny Tim’s “Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips With Me,” I knew I was a goner. I used Halston as a human shield the entire night (thank you) – he wasn’t afraid of anything except the massive scarecrow that popped out of the wall in Scarecrow: The Reaping.

And now, as we gear up for the weekend, I’ll unleash upon you another installment of Fri(yay) Lovin’ where I recap the things I’m loving this week!

The Florida Project: Set over one summer, the film follows Moonee, an adventurous 6-year-old girl and her young mother Halley, living in an extended-stay motel located along Kissimmee’s 192 tourism corridor. The movie stars Willem Dafoe as the owner of the Magic Castle Hotel, an actual property I’ve driven past thousands of times while working in Kissimmee and have never paid much attention to. Other landmarks include Orange World, the Magic Kingdom (which was filmed guerrilla-style inside the park), Magic Castle Gift Shop and Twistee Treat. The movie offers a colorful view of the underrepresented people in Kissimmee, those who haven’t come to the destination to visit a theme park, but instead live in extended-stay motels, struggling to make the rent (this is an actual, current issue we see in the area). In the movie, we see Halley, who in her own way, will do anything in her power to provide for her daughter and Moonee, who’s childlike innocence and curiosity paints a different picture to what the current circumstances actually are. The movie was raw and the ending abrupt but incredibly bittersweet – one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. The Florida Project is playing at the Enzian Theater through October 26.

The Glass Castle: The Glass Castle is the 2005 memoir of Jeannette Walls, an American journalist. In it, she shares stories of her poverty-stricken upbringing at the hands of her alcoholic father and schizophrenic mother. From tales of sleeping in cardboard boxes, rummaging through the school’s garbage for food and her father spending their little money on fruitless pursuits, it was extremely difficult for me to root for her parents at any point in the story. It broke my heart to read her anecdotes, as no child should have to go through an upbringing like that. The book was adapted into a movie which is currently playing in select theaters – so select, it is actually playing in The Villages… yes, the active adult retirement community with an alarmingly high STD rate. Unsure if I’ll make it out there any time soon, so I’ll just have to hope the movie ends up on Netflix.

Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father: I’ve been obsessed with Jack Whitehall since I watched him on Fresh Meat, so imagine how excited I was when I found out he had a travel documentary coming to Netflix. On the first episode, Jack explains that because he began his career at an early age, he was never able to go on a gap year, so he decides to backpack across South East Asia… with his stuffy 76-year-old father in tow as an attempt to strengthen their bond. The Odd Couple dynamic, with Jack’s thirst for adventure and Michael’s pessimism, made it a hilariously easy six episode binge-watch addition to my Netflix queue. I really hope that they continue the series and take their adventures all over the world!

Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? The Winter Park Autumn Art Festival is going on, as well as a Rifle Paper Company Sidewalk Sale, so I think I have my weekend planned out already!

xx